NEW YORK -- If the producers had wanted to level with the public, they'd have come up with a more appropriate title, something on the order of "Hugh Jackman's Chest Hair! The Musical."Not that Jackman's voice and calves are not impressive. He really can sing and dance, and does both with a star's radiant magnanimity in "The Boy From Oz," the misguided exercise in celebrity worship that opened last night at the Imperial Theatre. The Aussie actor's musical skills are on display from the opening minutes, but it is not until Act 2 that Jackman fully struts his stuff. Stripping to the waist and, taking a page from the Tom Jones Guide to the Macho Bump-and-Grind, he incites an audience to oohs, ahs and ovations.

For all its flaws - and they are many - there is still an overwhelming reason to catch The Boy From Oz, and that's the guy from Oz.

Hugh Jackman, the rising movie star from down under, delivers a portrait of the late Australian singer-songwriter Peter Allen that is nothing less than galvanizing. It transcends even the kind of indelible imprint Nathan Lane left on The Producers.

It seems to have been Peter Allen's fate to be overshadowed by other stars. When he died in 1992 - by which time he had scored an Academy Award, recorded 10 albums and starred on Broadway - Allen was still identified in obituaries as the man who had been discovered by Judy Garland and was the first husband of her daughter, Liza Minnelli.

His songs, too, were hits mostly for other performers: Melissa Manchester with "Don't Cry Out Loud," Olivia Newton-John with "I Honestly Love You."

Understandably. Rarely has a roof been lifted off a theater by the kind of thunderous applause that greeted Jackman (as the late Peter Allen) and the sensational "Oz" cast several times throughout the musical's premiere at the Imperial Theater, rising to a crescendo during the show's knockout finale: Jackman descending a glitzy Robin Wagner-designed staircase to a sea of Ziegfeldian-dressed (by William Ivey Long) showgirls and dancing boys, shaking shoulders and delivering a slam-bang version of one of Allen's signature songs, "I Go to Rio." (The house erupted.)

"Nine" has the "naked woman descending upside down in a bedsheet" number.

"The Boy From Oz" has Hugh Jackman.

That was at least one producer's answer to the question that has been dogging "Oz," the new Broadway musical about the Australian entertainer Peter Allen, since the reviews began more than a week ago, almost all of them loving the star but hating the show: Will Hugh Jackman be enough to sustain it?

New York - Forget "The Boy From Oz." That's the title of the silly, cliche-ridden new musical that worships Australian-born Peter Allen, the middling songwriter and cabaret act whose one standout quality was being openly gay.

But definitely catch the boy from Oz. That's the lanky, Australian-born Hugh Jackman, who oozes star power by the bucketload in his Broadway debut, playing Allen.

The producers of The Boy from Oz have done something rare in this season of flops, ego clashes, aborted openings and quick closings on Broadway. They returned $US1.24 million ($1.66 million) of upfront money to their investors and inched their Hawaiian-shirted musical closer to profitability.

John Travolta looked good on the big screen 27 years ago in a form-fitting white suit playing Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. But how would his slightly less-svelte figure cut it, now, in one of Peter Allen's Hawaiian shirts as The Boy from Oz?

Hugh Jackman, at the centre of a media juggernaut that includes a hit movie and musical, has been nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Peter Allen in the American production of The Boy From Oz.

"Playing Peter Allen is not usually what you think is going to turn your movie career around, but it ironically did fantastic things for me," Jackman said in Sydney yesterday.

The X-Men star's stint on Broadway was used as a virtual casting call for Hollywood directors: Darren Aronofsky cast Jackman in his dressing room for the coming sci-fi movie The Fountain; Woody Allen saw his stage performance and cast him in Scoop; and after watching The Boy From Oz, Steven Spielberg rang Jackman and said: "I've got to do a movie with you".

The Boy From Oz producer Ben Gannon has died at his Sydney home after a long battle with cancer. He was 54. The international producer of theatre, film and television enjoyed a 30-year career in the arts.

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